Impostor Theory
Mary Donnelly

If words can never express,
why even lunge for the pen or drive,
for that matter, she said, if everything
separate from is dependent upon
the thing towards which it rebels…
and on and on she went like a good
imposter, known only to herself
and those academic cads of criticism.
Better to think happy thoughts instead:

the time, it will never be right, the dress
will have eaten the bag, and hope
has dried up its own eternal spring
such that there inevitably springs to mind
an overwhelming act of philosophical
grace: we float in a sea of inadequate,
like the brine they raise babies in,
all hydroponic predicate, but such,
that no one notices. It feels, instead,

copacetic to them, so warm and wet. You see,
I'm not really an imposter, but I play one
on TV: the phony British accent, the foulard
tie and arched brow, the board-certified
psychiatrist's degree. I'm the dumb bunny
who unwittingly takes in
the beautiful schizophrenic, the very
same blonde who conceals her morning
medicine in stretch jean pockets,

who fantasizes we're in love, though
I'm a weathered old shoe of a man
with a bad case of blue-blooded
lockjaw. She thanks me with dinner
for helping her through the death
of her cancer-ridden dad, until I watch
the pornography of myself over and over
again with awe and lust and dream
that I too could produce such gum.

© Mary Donnelly